Tuesday, January 6, 2015

From the Mundane to the Sublime

Have you heard the story of a man who started with a single red paperclip and through a series of trades, ended up with a house? Well, it's a true story. The lucky guy's name is Kyle MacDonald and his story is the inspiration behind the spread I created this month in Su's "From the Mundane to the Sublime" book.

Kyle wrote about each of his trades on his blog. As I read the stories behind each transaction, I decided the best way to tell his story was using a meandering book. Each trade could be revealed as the meandering book unfolded.

I selected the key images from Kyle's blog to tell a visual story. Su's book is not that big, so the images had to be sized down. I then had to select which style meandering book would best compliment this story and how it unfolded. I chose a simple meandering (accordion style) book that had 16 panels.

Logistically, it was a bit of a challenge to figure out where the story would start and end. In order for the book to unfold in the least complicated way, this story begins in the upper right hand corner. From there, the book unfolds one panel at a time to reveal the next trade. I added text to the images to help tell the story, but the blog contains many more details that are worth reading. You can read more here: http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/